I'm the coauthor of The New Killer Apps: How Large Companies Can Out-Innovate Start-Ups. I’m also the coauthor of Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance (Harvard Business School Press, 1998) and Billion-Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years (Portfolio, 2008).
I cofounded and am the managing director of the Devil’s Advocate Group, a consultancy that helps business leaders design and stress test their innovation strategies.
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In 2008, a state-of-the-art driverless car could go two blocks on its own on a closed course at 25mph. By 2012, the driverless car could operate in real-world conditions at 75mph.

Such rapid progress offers great hope that the tremendous benefits in safety and savings I laid out in Part 1 of this series are attainable. The pace of progress also means that the disruptive ripple effects discussed in Part 2 might soon have strategic relevance for companies participating in the multi-trillion-dollar part of the economy that relates to cars. But we’re left with two crucial questions: How soon could the driverless car become a reality? When should incumbents, venture capitals and entrepreneurs start paying serious attention?

The short answer to both questions is: sooner than most think. This article explains why.

When estimating technology adoption, it is wise to remember Paul Saffo’s admonition to “never mistake a clear view for a short distance.” No matter how powerful a technology is, there are numerous factors that stand between technical viability and widespread adoption—cost, usability, customer acceptance, business models, entrenched interests, regulations and so on.

As illustrated in the figure, technology improves exponentially, but social, political and economic systems tend to change incrementally. Only when the differential between existing conditions and what is technically possible becomes large enough are human systems jolted into disruptive change. These jolts are the openings for “killer apps,” new goods or services that are so compelling that they catalyze a new generation of products. VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, was the killer app for personal computers. MosaicMosaic, the first browser, was the killer app for the World Wide Web. The iPad was the killer app for tablets.

Let’s look at the adoption of the driverless car through the lens of the Law of Disruption, to see both how advanced the technology is and what social, political and economic systems might delay the “killer app” jolt.

Technology is the easy part. There’s ample evidence that driverless technology from GoogleGoogle and others is already better than many drivers. In addition to the riveting video of a 95%-blind man “driving” a Google car that I showed in Part 1 of this series, here’s a montage of on-the-road clips narrated by Chris Urmson, who currently leads Google’s driverless program.

As you absorb Chris’ description, keep in mind that his examples are almost two years old. The car’s progress has continued at the exponential rate illustrated in Figure 1 and will even accelerate once significant numbers of cars reach the road. That’s because, while we humans learn almost entirely from our own experiences, every Google car can learn from the experiences of every other Google car.

Blanketing the roads with Google cars will also provide incredibly detailed, up-to-the second information to the “cloud” about road conditions, traffic and travel times. Each car will draw on that information and know to be extra careful at dangerous intersections or know, say, that black ice was felt at a certain spot 15 minutes earlier.

With progress so rapid, the technology in the Google car has miles and miles of open road in front of it. Even skeptics seem to believe that the question about the timing of the driverless car is less “if” than “when.”

But the social, political and economic systems that could act as a limiting function on “when” are significant. Consider some of the commonly voiced hurdles:

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You might want to take a look at the columns by Joann Mueller and Haydn Shaughnessy, who also think the auto industry is doing just fine on driverless. I offered lengthy responses in the comments section of both articles.

The short answer to your question is, yes, I do believe that Google is ahead in driverless. Google’s advantage is that it is taking an aggressive, disruptive approach to driverless, rather than assuming that the technology will be adopted as incremental (and expensive) add-ons to current cars. This lays a different trajectory for their research and development than that of the car makers. It is a higher risk approach and more likely to fail, but puts them in position to jumpstart the adoption process, as I laid out in scenario 1 of this article. It also offers Google numerous ways to capture tremendous value for a very relatively small investment. All that, I think, adds up to more than a quest for good PR.

For the longer answer, please refer to the columns and my responses in the comments section.

As to Google’s role, I’ve already written many words about that in the first three columns. But, yes, you’ll get more in Part 4.

Thanks for taking the time to comment! I encourage you to jump into the pool and post your own thoughts about how this strategic competition might play out.

A slight change in premise from the auto to the building industry as the driving force and suddenly we’re already in the midst of the scenario that is jumpstarting adoption of the driverless auto. Buildings that are connected horizontally coast to coast similar to how the elevator took us vertically is only a basic framework away from offering any real estate developer or fabrication shop the option to integrate their designs based on some simple rules. Long term adoption will come by private service providers circumventing the auto industry and the infrastructure it relies on.

Although the Google self-driving car makes great headlines, the real gains from this project will be technologies that can gradually be incorporated in ordinary production cars. Obvious examples are collision warning systems (such as is already available in some Mercedes models) or self-parking systems (available even in cheaper Ford models). However the biggest benefit could come from the closer safe distance between cars, which would greatly increase the capacity of congested urban highway lanes. In a few years we might start to see lanes for self-driving cars only, replacing the HoV lanes. Once drivers see self-driving cars pass them on their daily commute, demand will soon pick up!

I have a self-driving car. It’s called a taxi. I raise my hand and it takes me to my destination safe and secure. I can even surf the internet or nap while I am being driven to my destination. Plus no need to park-it. If there was a fleet of driverless taxi’s to take you around the city, it would definitely be a win-win for all.

You’re right about today’s taxis. Unfortunately, most don’t have access to great taxi service. And it is prohibitively expensive for most commutes. In NYC, for example, the yellow taxicabs average about $5 per mile. Luckily, the average trip is only 1.9 miles long. Outside of Manhattan, many people need to go further than 2 miles per trip.

So, yes, a fleet of driverless taxi’s at 15% of the price (as forecasted for NYC) would indeed be a win-win for all!

“How long end drivers are allowed (technically and legally) not to pay attention to road” will be the most interesting thing to watch for the next 5 to 10 years and especially: * environmental conditions allowing it. * the price of the technical features needed. * reliability.